Thursday, January 15, 2009

Did they really just do this? Les Miles Syndrome.

(Ok, I know the post is tongue-in-cheek, so here is our tongue-in-cheek response to it)

The 11th Commandment says: Thou Shalt not besmirch the name of Danny Ford. And you crazy jawja fans just did.

I recognized how analogous the two men are when Coach Miles called for the onside kick against Georgia Tech. It was wild! It was wacky! It was insane! However, it also worked, and not because of random dumb luck, either. It was a calculated gamble. Yes, it was bold, but it was also shrewd. It was the decision of a coach intelligent enough to make an accurate assessment of the odds and gutsy enough to run the risk of having the percentages play out differently.

WTF. Youre basing it off of that and the Treadwell kick? DF wouldnt do the crazy shit Les Miles does. There's a key difference between these two men: Les is stupid crazy, Danny was smart crazy. DF might not know shit about anything else, but he did know how to call a game.

We both hate Les Miles, especially as a gameday coach. The reason is that what DF did on gameday made sense, what Les does makes absofuckinglutely no sense. I've been here every year since Les came on, so I've seen all the stupidity in person. I'm going to pick a few stupid things Les did, which define the Les Miles Syndrome.

#1. The fake punt against Arizona State, in Les' first game (post-Katrina).

Lets just call a fake punt FROM DEEP IN LSU TERRITORY early in the game. Les said afterwards the punter made the call himself, horseshit Les, you fucked up and didnt want anyone to know how stupid that call was. Yeah, tell me DF would've done that. What followed was superior talent bailing Les out at the end of the game, which became his staple.

Leading 21-0 at halftime, and completely dominating Tenn. on a 100F monday night (where I lost at least 10 lbs.), Les decides to completely stop throwing the ball, and just runs up the middle every play for the 2nd half. Clausen, #1 asshole, flips off the student section after scoring the leading touchdown late. In what would become a hallmark of Les Miles football, he decides to start playing football again in the late 4th quarter, but makes a bunch of stupid ass playcalls and comes up short at the end. It was the most pissed off I have ever been at an LSU game.

#3. Auburn 2007, (hell the whole 2007 season) just watch the Clock. You're in FG range already, the clock is running under 15 seconds after the last play. What does DF do? He runs the clock all the way down, calls his last timeout, kicks the FG. See Treadwell.

That was the 2nd most pissed off I've ever been at an LSU game. If that pass falls incomplete, Les gets castrated on the spot by crazy-ass LSU fans and no national championship.

#4. Florida 2007. Go for 4th down 5 times and get every one. What coach in his right mind does that shit? I admit I wanted him to go for it for the ones in UF territory that were out of FG range, including the ones where you had to on the final drive. Further proof that LSU's superior talent saved Les from castration. You say: "well he's showing confidence in his team"...well that doesnt mean you test fate over and over again.

#5. The Les Miles offensive philosophy: "Run twice up the middle, get nothing, then throw a bomb" See the entire career of J. Russell. See Florida 2006.

#6. The 2008 season, the Dual-DC system. A year after all his playmakers graduated, Les decides to keep the fabulous J.Lee in each game long enough to throw enough pick-6's to lose every game. Instead of progressing after the Auburn game, he gets WORSE, as does the D. UGA-enough points on turnovers to make up the difference in score, Alabama-2 TDs in the first half because of Lee, Troy-dont get me started, Arky-WTF? Then, after the season is over, he puts in Jefferson and a gameplan, and thumps GT. Jefferson wasnt hurt all year, he could've come in, yet Les left him on the bench.

#7. Tulane 2007. LSU fucks around the entire game, then superior talent wins it at the end. Kentucky 2007, one big clusterfuck of shittyness.

Enough 2007 references? This man wins on the edge of his teeth every week. Les Miles is the LSU version of Ken Hatfield, but with a better record in big games. Les' saving grace is that if you give him a month to prepare, he will beat you, just like Ford. Les won't make it two more years at LSU.

Could DF have won all these games? There's no telling, DF's gameplan was entirely different, but he was a winner, and I'd say he'd have won a majority of them. Danny would go for a tie if he had to, to win the conference. He'd piss enough people off after he lost to be banished to the press box, but he wouldnt do stupid shit during a game that might cost his team a victory.

9 comments:

Some of the shit that Les Miles did defies Playstation logic. To use Les in the same sentence as Danny is rediculous, as you would never see Coach Ford lobbing prayers in the endzone when his team could win the game with an easy field goal and 8 seconds are left on the clock. Les Miles has a horseshoe jammed up his ass because there is no other explanation for the amount of dumbass luck he has been fortunate enough to recieve over the past 3-4 years.

I agree with the good doctor; Les Miles could fuck up a wet dream and will be run out of Cajun Country in less than two years.

1. I believe Les said there was miscommunication, and the punter thought he called it. That's a slight difference.

And we won.

2. We had JaMarcus Russel as QB. Russell can only heave deep bombs and INTs: see Oakland Raiders. If you have a choice, you run the ball. The better argument is for why Russell was playing and not Flynn.

3. David hadn't been that great, missing a few biggies in that game and in the Florida game. It's not unreasonable to think he might wilt under pressure on a long kick for a college kid. He had nine seconds left; Auburn was napping and Byrd had single coverage. With a timeout, go for it. There should have been 4 seconds on the clock anyway; it would have had to been a heck of a flip up to spend 4 secs.

And we won.

4. You have Jacob Hester and a beast of an offensive line. You should go on almost every 4th and short situation, b/c the odds are that you'll make it. Les did; we made all 5 getting the TDs and taking time away from Tebow. This year, when the O-line wasn't so good, he went for it rarely.

And we won.

5. That's pretty much Russell's skill set. worked well against the cupcakes LSU faced and well enough to trick the Raiders into wasting a pick. Flynn should have been in instead and we could have won the BCS two years in a row.

6. I won't defend the double-dc, but there's not much to pick from between your spring training 3rd and 4th stringers. Lee at times showed promise (4th quarter Troy, 2nd half Auburn) but never got over that hump. In a season where you're not going anywhere anyway after losing too many seniors last year, let Lee get some seasoning and try him out. Jefferson wasn't all that impressive when he subbed for Lee before Ark, missing quite a few open guys.

And Jefferson started the Ark game, not Lee.

7. Every team has let down games. Les's fault, but it's not that hideous. UK is bad, but it's not a ULM loss.

And as for the "needing a month to prepare?" Please. Les's record in the regular season is pretty darn good. 10-2, 10-2, 11-2, 7-5 for a .778 winning average, good enough to get him ranked in the top 5 his first 3 years as a coach (and about .8 average if you count the bowl games too)

You can claim he's lucky, but it's hard to make that argument while he keeps winning.

How big a miscommunication is it when your punter doesnt have the sense to know not to fake at your own 20.

Look at the clock again for your Auburn argument. All he had to do was give it to Hester for one play and put the ball at midfield for a 35yd FG. David can hit that just fine. He won the game on pure dumb luck.

And you dont tempt fate by going for it every 4th down, when some of those are long 4ths, no coach is that dumb, aside from Les. I'm afraid to break it to you, but the odd are NOT in your favor, particularly against a Charlie Strong defense.

Seasoning? what about pissing 4 games away himself? Jefferson never showed anything because he ran the (non-UT) Perilloux-offense: "Put me in and I'll run the ball on the option, I'll never throw and they will never figure it out."

Had Jarrett Lee been taken out or spelled more with Jefferson, LSU wouldve been in a BCS game.

10,10,11,7....mostly won against cupcakes who don't have the talent or coaching to compete against LSU's 2nd string, and the rest are pure luck.

Yeah, it's a big miscommunication. Slightly understandable considering it was Les's debut and the first post-Katrina game. Also hurts your "les is reckless" argument.

As for the Auburn game, assuming Hester will get 5 yards is a bit generous, especially when you assume he can't get 1 or 2 on 4th. Hester ran more up the middle of the line, which was on the right side of the field; getting to the middle of the field from there would have been a hard task for Hester. Besides, that doesn't address the shakiness of Colt before that. Also, when do you call a timeout in that sequence that doesn't leave Auburn any time? One of the smart things about that play is that it sucks time off the clock, so that Auburn had only a kickoff to come back for a TD.

Les went 13 of 16 on 4ths in 07. That's not luck. Besides, if you think Hester can get 5 to the inside is reasonable, Les should have gone for more.

Please. Blaming those losses solely on Lee is absurd. The pass defense played far worse than Lee ever did. It's true Jefferson mostly optioned, but he threw a few times and it wasn't pretty. I was there. Lee or Jefferson, it wouldn't have mattered. Neither was good enough to get us to the BCS. Perriloux might have (we could have beat Georiga and Arkansas for sure, and probably Bama and Ole Miss too), but there's no combination of your 3rd and 4th string with a weak pass defense in the SEC that gets you to the BCS.

Seriously? Cupcakes or luck? In the SEC during this time? Les Miles is not that lucky, nor is anyone. Give him some credit. There were plenty of cupcakes, but all BCS coaches face their fair share of cupcakes. But Les Miles has beaten many good teams (and blown out a few of them).

You have 10 coaches, and a month of practice, and a hurricane is not a fucking excuse.

I misspoke when I said 35, Hester would have to get 5 to get that, but all of that is not necessary. Its a 40yd from the spot of the snap where they were.

All Les needed to do was call a run play to spot the ball at midfield, and any yardage would've helped. A simple HB Power behind Herman Johnson would've gotten a yard or two and Hester was dependable enough to put it at midfield. You run the clock down to 3 seconds, call TO, kick, and theres no time left for a KO Ret.

At no point did I solely blame losses on Lee, but if Lee wasnt in there to throw a couple pick-6s to Alabama and Georgia, LSU would've likely won 1, and quite possibly the 2nd. Ole Piss was a loss either way. As it was, he was left in, despite his shaken confidence, and allowed to lose the game before the bad defense took the field.

Dude, you are not paying attention to the game. Theres no argument that will save your POV on Auburn. What Miles did was stupid.

You could come back and say, "Well he wanted the TD", which is fine, but you don't piss away 15 secs of clock on 3rd down to do it. Had Lee taken one more second to throw, and it fallen incomplete, its a loss, and a stupid one to be remembered forever.

I would've done what DrB said, but you could take your shot at the 1st by hitting your guy LaFell for a quick hitch route, then had time to take at least 2 shots at the TD before kicking. But Miles didnt do that.

I'm amused that you've abandoned the "going on 4th was dumb" for Florida in favor of the "Hester is beast and is dependable guy to get yards" for Auburn argument.

You never have considered the fact that David was shaky. He had some misses in that game and Florida, and in a big pressure situation, with a national title on the line, it was pretty iffy to have David go for it. In was after the Auburn game that David began to emerge as very dependable.

What you guys also don't seem to realize is that Auburn isn't out of timeouts. They have 2. There's no run the play and watch the clock tick down. If LSU runs a play, Auburn can TO and have 1 remaining with enough time for one, maybe two passes before they TO to get their own kicker on the field, who was 3 weeks off from kicking a game winner at Florida. So LSU has to run a play pretty close to time to prevent Auburn from having a chance to get back in field goal range. Also, we only had one TO, so throwing a pass to anyone is risky in case we had to use it up when they were stopped in bounds.

The question then is run or pass. Auburn clearly expects run, so Hester gets one or two at best, maybe gets back to midfield. Hester doesn't fumble, but there's an equal chance he gets stood up and time expires as there is for a deflection. Auburn is giving D Byrd single coverage with a shorter corner, Les knew that FLYNN (not Lee, Rob) threw that ball well in practice, so he went for the unexpected. Low and behold, the mismatch paid off and Flynn delivered.

Also, if you look at that video, there's 4 seconds remaining when byrd hits the ground; the clock kept running. 4 secs is too long for a deflection, unless they bat it straight up, which is highly unlikely. As the announcer says, that ball was designed to be Byrd catches it or no one catches it; if Byrd misses it hits the ground, 3 secs left and David trots on the field.

If you're not convinced, go back to the tape. Why doesn't Tuberville use his two TOs to give his team more time if David is a clinch kicker? When you get down to it, Tuberville's decision to hold on to those TOs is the worse decision because he leaves his team at the mercy of a last second play, but that's not a bad call if you don't think David can make the kick.

Neither Miles nor Tubs trusted David to make the kick, and so Miles threw it up and Tubs was left with two TOs and a loss. It's not that unreasonable of a call.

As for Lee, I still don't know how smart it is to trust the true freshmen who was your spring training camp 4th string. Jefferson probably needed a lot more time to work with the offense, time that showed in his improvement from Arkansas to Georgia Tech. Lee had worked more with the offense in trying to earn the starting job and had shown an ability to win the close game (Auburn)

All I'm arguing is that these aren't completely off the wall decisions. There's a good bit of sense behind them, and even if you don't fully agree with them you can still see why he did it. Les Miles seems to be best at knowing what his team can do and doing it. He can get predictable sometimes in play calling (I'm kinda tired of the option play myself) but he does work to play to his strengths and when he gambles, he's doing it with the odds on his side.

As for my purple and gold glasses, well, my glasses were quite clear when from the LSU student section I watched Flynn's spiral descend gracefully into Byrd's hands. Pretty sweet, I have to admit.

Hester couldve gotten one yard, as long as he put it at midfield it wouldnt matter how much he got.

David missed one FG in that game, if he couldnt hit a 35-40 from midfield then he shouldnt be kicking.

Auburn didnt call a timeout at all did they? They watched 30 seconds run off the clock. As long as they have the lead, thats what Tubbs is going to do. If you let it run down and call TO before kicking, he wont have time to do anything else.

If you throw a pass and its caught inbounds, you let the clock run down to 3 and call TO, then kick.